Friday letters: Eyes on Houston's trash

Copyright 2014: Houston Chronicle

Updated 8:40 pm, Thursday, August 14, 2014

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Friday letters: Eyes on Houston's trash

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Recycling

Regarding "One Bin opposition" (Page B8, Aug. 8), the country's largest recycling trade organization has taken a quiet but definite stance against programs that ask residents to commingle trash and recyclables for post-collection sortation.

"ISRI supports the collection and sortation of recyclable materials in a manner that optimizes the value and utilization of the material as specification grade commodities to be used as a feedstock to manufacture new products," the statement reads. "Since the quality of the recyclables as specification grade commodities is essential, ISRI opposes the commingling of recyclables with solid waste or mixed waste processing in a one-bin system where all solid waste and recyclables are placed together with no separation prior to recycling."

Approved by ISRI's board of directors on July 23, the official position comes at a time when various cities are considering the merits of the "one bin" approach. Last week, voters approved a proposed $45 million mixed-material facility by Covanta in Indianapolis. The company and city have argued the operation will be able to effectively recover marketable recyclables from the trash.

Further, the city of Houston is the midst of choosing from a variety of like-minded proposals, while Cleveland is also said to be considering the change.

Many recycled commodity experts argue the relatively new method jeopardizes the quality of recycled materials due to high rates of solid waste-driven contamination.

Bobby Elliott, Resource Recycling, Portland, Ore.

Two cities

Both Houston and Austin have won million-dollar grants to work on trash and recycling, but their plans each take an opposite approach.

Austin is using a million-dollar grant to build an eco-industrial park to attract recycling, reuse and composting companies. Such a project is perhaps the pot of gold at the end of the recycling rainbow. It will create a diverse network of local jobs that combined with universal recycling and composting at home, work and play, will divert 90 percent of the city's trash by 2025. The eco-industrial park will increase recycling revenue as the recovered materials provide feedstock for local industry, and the city has a detailed business plan showing how this will lower overall costs.

Houston is using its million-dollar grant to build a mixed-waste processing plant that will recover a small percentage of low-grade recyclables and process the rest as fuel for a garbage incinerator using gasification technology. The system will come with high capital and operating costs for the foreseeable future, 20-35 years. It will create few jobs, and recycling companies will not be attracted to the city as raw materials will be destroyed for short-term energy production.

Austin started on its path to recycling and economic development in the late 1980s after a newly elected City Council cancelled a garbage incinerator that was already under construction. Citizens showed that by absorbing a $22 million loss, the city would save $120 million over the planned life of the incinerator.